#4 Utah Preview

Roster
Delaney, Kailah - Senior - VT (possible BB, FX)
Hughes, Breanna - Senior - VT, UB (possible BB, FX)
Lange, Haley - Senior - N/A
Lee, Kari - Sophomore - VT, UB, BB, FX
Lewis, Tiffani - Sophomore - VT, UB, FX
Lopez, Kassandra - Senior - UB, BB
McNatt, Shannon - Freshman
Merrell, MaKenna - Freshman
Muhaw, Erika - Freshman
Partyka, Samantha - Sophomore - VT
Rowe, Baely - Junior - VT, UB, BB, FX
Schwab, Sabrina - Freshman
Stover, Maddy - Sophomore - BB

Recent History
2015 - 2nd
2014 - 8th
2013 - 9th
2012 - 5th
2011 - 5th
2010 - 6th

2016 Outlook
The Utes couldn't have hoped to do any better than they did at last season's Marsden farewell celebration tour when the 49.5s suddenly poured straight out of the sky, but in the cold light of an onrushing 2016, things look very different. The holes in this roster are suddenly large and everywhere. Basically, Megan and Tom have to reconstruct half a team, and by necessity, returning gymnasts will be expected to compete events they weren't making last season. That's usually a recipe for regression, so don't expect the same result as in 2015 (though no one really expected it in 2015 either).

The 2016 team we saw at the Red Rocks Preview does possess enough depth to put together competitive lineups, but without too, too many stars/stars-in-the-making, this looks like another season in which Utah will have to workmanlike-9.850 the other contending teams into submission to make it back to Super Six. That strategy has worked plenty of times before. The mission for Utah is to show more depth, constancy, and durability through whole lineups than Pac-12 peers UCLA and Stanford, who will have more 9.9s but may struggle to fill out the entire lineup with competitive scores.

Key Competitor
One underclassman who did emerge as a new bright light amidst that Dabritz/Lothrop ticker-tape parade of a 2015 season was Kari Lee. Most significantly, she brought an elevated level of extension and refinement that had been missing from the beam lineup, but she also has an exceptionally clean and stickable full on vault, a 9.900 floor routine, and a sufficiently usable bars routine that may actually be needed this year. Suddenly this season, she has become the most impressive gymnast on the roster, and she'll have to lead the charge in creating the big nest of new 9.9s Utah needs to succeed in 2016.

Vault 


Vault was a tremendous strength for Utah last season, pushing the team right into the vicinity of a title with a whole host of 9.925s and controlled landings (that survived all the way to the championship instead of disappearing around February!). In 2016, however, there's more reason to question Utah's viability as a vault powerhouse because of the changes in roster and start value. Kailah Delaney is the one remaining member of the 9.950-a-trons, and while she will once again be an essential component of the lineup, her vault remains a full. That means she'll be looking at something closer to 9.875-9.900s most weeks, useful scores but not dominant scores.

The member of Utah's team who will benefit the most from the new vault values is Breanna Hughes. I remember when Hughes first arrived at Utah and I was all up in her 1.5 being a centerpiece of the vault lineup. That never happened even a little, but it has always been a solid vault and one that she stuck in the RRP. This is finally her year to become a vaulter. The coaches should put her difficulty 5th with Delaney 6th to push that Delaney score up as much as possible. Note that you're going to get very sick of me complaining about vault lineup orders this season. MaKenna Merrell also had a 1.5 in JO, though she showed just a full in the preview, which makes sense because the full was only OK. I'm not sold on her difficulty or placement in the lineup as yet. She might get Hughesed for a while.

The rest of the lineup will be fulls, unless McNatt and her Omelianchik materialize. Kari Lee will certainly be back for 9.850-9.875s since her full is second-best to Delaney's. Beyond that, a collective of 9.825-9.850 fulls will compete for the remaining three (or so) spots including Lewis, Partyka, Rowe, and Muhaw. It's a solid contingent, but losing the Dabritz and Wilson vaults will most certainly be felt in the scores. I still like this lineup for an RQS around 49.350, but it doesn't look like the 49.5s of recent days.

Bars


I should probably refrain from writing this section because reality has proven that I just don't get it with Utah's bars and the scoring. It eludes me. Right now, I look at the nine or ten options Utah has on bars this year, and they all look around 9.800-9.850 to me. Which means they'll go 49.600 at nationals. But still, it seems inevitable that the Utes will experience a noticeable drop-off post-Dabritz because, you know, there's not another auto-10 just hanging out on the roster. Given the lost routines, ending up a couple tenths lower than last year's bars scores seems a realistic outlook.

A lot of these routine options look pretty similar right now, so expect some mixing and matching with the ultimate lineup spots determined by stickability. The stalwarts should be Lopez, who has been a bars constant for a thousand years and has always scored well, and Baely Rowe, who was a reliable 9.850 all last season. Across the whole team, though, Rowe's bars work looked the most improved at this year's preview, with a better finishing position on her full turn, tidy legs on the bail, and a stuck DLO, so I could see her scoring higher this season. As for the new ones, I'm most looking forward to seeing Sabrina Schwab develop as a bars worker. She has the best line and toe point on the roster, so if they can put together competitive difficulty for her with a dismount she can stick, she'll be a future bars star. In the present, she at least needs to be an integral early-mid lineup piece.

Freshman Orientation: Utah

Because last year's Super Six and the subsequent discussion was all about the close margin between Alabama, Florida, and UCLA, it's easy to forget that Utah finished less than half of a point behind the champions. Now, I would make the argument that a lack of proper separation between scores was a problem there (and throughout the season, and always, a point I will be sharpening for, oh, the next six months), but even taking that into account, Utah wasn't completely blown away by the top three last year.

The single biggest deficit that the Utes faced when compared to the eventual champion Alabama came on vault, which accounted for nearly half of the difference in scores. Utah fans should therefore be pleased that the new freshman class features two standouts on that event (Taylor Allex and Breanna Hughes), both of whom boast solid Yurchenko 1.5s that were consistently scoring in the 9.750-9.800 range in JO. With these two, Utah should be able to withstand the loss of Kyndal Robarts on this event and improve on last season's scores (while also featuring a refreshingly low-ish number of Yurchenko fulls).

The less pleasant news comes when we rotate to bars. The team is losing routines from both Stephanie McAllister and Cortni Beers, but only one of the new freshmen (Hughes) looks like a potential contributor on that event. Bars is not nearly as strong for Allex or Haley Lange. Someone like Nansy Damianova could come into the lineup to fill the empty spot, but it will be difficult for the team to improve too much on bars from last year, and I foresee a lot of 9.800s.

Overall, this is one of the more unheralded freshman classes of the year because there are no elites, but I anticipate these newcomers competing at the same level we have seen from Utah the past three seasons or so. Expect Breanna Hughes to be the big all-around contributor. She doesn't have a significantly weaker event, and her nice form on bars and competitive difficulty on all pieces should help her be an early-mid lineup worker wherever the Utes need.

Taylor Allex is a nice recruit for vault and floor, and I see her contributing in both places during the season. Beam is OK, but I would put an asterisk next to it for consistency. Utah has a habit of creating beamers, though, and the team prides itself on beam consistency, so we may see some of Allex there. I've seen the least of Haley Lange, but it appears (especially in her beam work) that acro elements are the comfort and dance elements are the nail biters. I do appreciate that she competes handspring vaults, but she will be the type who has to learn new skills and improve some areas of form while at Utah to be a contributor. She's not entering as a lineup-ready gymnast. The team released video during the summer of her training a double layout on floor, which is exactly the kind of development I'm talking about.

Breanna Hughes